Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two opponents throwing punches at each other for a predetermined amount of time. It is usually done wearing protective equipment, such as protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards.
Although the term 'boxing' commonly refers to the Western style, where only the fists are used, it has evolved differently in various regions and cultures across the world. Today the term, "boxing" is also used to refer to any combat sport focused on striking, where two opponents fight each other using their fists, and could possibly involve kicks, elbow strikes, knee strikes, and headbutts, depending on the rules. These include bare-knuckle boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, Lethwei, savate, and sanda. Boxing techniques have been incorporated into many martial arts, military systems, as well as other combat sports.
Humans have engaged in hand-to-hand combat since the beginning of human history. It is unclear when boxing became a sport, but some sources suggest prehistoric origins, dating back to as early as the 6th millennium BC in what is now Ethiopia. It is believed that when the Egyptians invaded Nubia, they adopted boxing from the local populace, subsequently popularizing it in Egypt. From there, the sport of boxing spread to various regions, including Greece, eastward to Mesopotamia, and northward to Rome.
The earliest visual evidence of boxing comes from Egypt and Sumer, both from the 3rd millennium, and are found in Sumerian carvings dating to the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. The earliest evidence of boxing rules dates back to Ancient Greece, when boxing was added to the Olympic games in 688 BC. Boxing evolved through the prizefights of the 16th - 18th-centuries, largely in Great Britain, to its modern forerunner in the mid-19th century, with the introduction of the Marquess of Queensberry Rules in 1867.
Boxing is overseen by a referee and consists of a series of 1 - 3 minute intervals called "rounds". A winner can be decided before the rounds are complete if a referee determines that an opponent is unable to continue, disqualifies an opponent, or if the opponent is knocked out or quits. When the fight reaches the end of its final round, and both opponents are still standing, the winner is determined by the judges' scorecards. In case both fighters gain equal scores from the judges, it is considered a draw. In Olympic boxing, because a winner must be declared, judges award the contest to one fighter based on technical criteria. Amateur boxing is part of both the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, and is a standard feature in most international games. Boxing also has its own world championships, which are governed by the WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO.
Hitting with extremities of the body, such as kicks and punches, as an act of human aggression, has existed across the world's cultures throughout human history, being a combat system as old as wrestling. However, in terms of sports competition, due to the lack of writing in the prehistory and the lack of references, it is not possible to determine rules of any kind of boxing in prehistory; ancient history can be inferred from only the few intact sources and references to boxing-like activities.
The origin of the sport of boxing is unknown. However, Bert Blewett, in his 1999 A-Z of World Boxing, states it may have prehistoric origins in present-day Ethiopia, where it appeared in the sixth millennium BC. When the Middle Kingdom of Egypt invaded Nubia, it learned the art of boxing from the local population and brought the sport back to Egypt, where it became popular. From Egypt, boxing spread to other lands, including Greece, eastward to Mesopotamia, and northward to Rome.
The earliest visual evidence of any boxing is in Mesopotamian stone reliefs of the end of the fourth millennium BC. There are similar reliefs from Egypt and Sumer, both from the third millennium BC. A relief sculpture from Egyptian Thebes c. 1350 BC shows both boxers and spectators. These early Middle Eastern and Egyptian reliefs depicted contests wherein fighters were either bare-fisted or had a band supporting the wrist. The earliest evidence of the use of gloves can be found in Minoan Crete (c. 1500–1400 BC).
A number of boxing forms existed in ancient India. The earliest references to musti-yuddha come from Indian epic poetry, such as the Rig Veda (c. 1500–1000 BCE) and Ramayana (c. 700–400 BCE). The Mahabharata describes two combatants boxing with clenched fists and fighting with kicks, finger strikes, knee strikes and headbutts during the time of King Virata. Duels (niyuddham) were often fought to the death. During the period of the Western Satraps, the ruler Rudradaman—in addition to being well-versed in Indian classical music, Sanskrit grammar, and logic—was said to be an excellent horseman, charioteer, elephant rider, swordsman, and boxer. The Gurbilas Shemi, an 18th-century Sikh text, gives numerous references to musti-yuddha. The martial art is related to other forms of martial arts found in other parts of Greater India, including Muay Thai in Thailand, Muay Lao in Laos, Pradal Serey in Cambodia, and Lethwei in Myanmar.
The first record of a "prize fight" in literature is the funeral games for Patroclus in the Iliad (c.750 BC). Ancient Greek boxing (Ancient Greek: πυγμαχία, romanized: pygmakhia, lit. 'fist-fighting'; also transliterated as pygmachía) was a well-developed sport and enjoyed consistent popularity. Boxing was introduced in the Ancient Olympic Games of 688 BC. The boxers would wind leather thongs around their hands in order to protect them. There were no rounds, and boxers fought until one acknowledged defeat or could not continue. Weight categories were not used, which led to heavier fighters often dominating. The style of boxing typically featured an advanced left-leg stance, with the left arm semi-extended as a guard, used for striking, and the right arm drawn back, ready to strike. The head of the opponent was primarily targeted, and there is little evidence that targeting the body or using kicks was common, thus resembling modern Western boxing.
Boxing was a popular spectator sport in Ancient Rome. Fighters protected their knuckles with leather strips wrapped around their fists. Eventually, harder leather was used, and the strips became a weapon. Metal studs were introduced to the strips to make the cestus. Fighting events were held in Roman amphitheatres.
Records of boxing activity disappeared in the West after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, when the wearing of weapons became common once again and interest in fistfighting waned. However, there are detailed records of various fist-fighting sports that were maintained in different cities and provinces of Italy between the 12th and 17th centuries. In ancient Rus, bare-knuckle boxing was known as kulachniy boy (Russian: кулачный бой, lit. 'fist fight'), first appearing in the Church Slavonic Primary Chronicle published c. 1117.
As the wearing of swords became less common, there was renewed interest in fencing with the fists. The sport later resurfaced in England during the early 16th century as bare-knuckle boxing, also known as prizefighting. The first documented account of a bare-knuckle fight in England appeared in 1681 in the London Protestant Mercury, and the first English bare-knuckle champion was James Figg in 1719. It was at this point that the term "boxing" first came to be used, though the earliest form of modern boxing was very different from boxing as practiced now. Contests in Figg's time, in addition to fistfighting, also included fencing and cudgeling. On 6 January 1681, the first recorded boxing match took place in Britain with Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle (later the lieutenant governor of Jamaica) engineering a match between his butler and his butcher; the latter won the prize.
Early fighting had no written rules, weight divisions, round limits, or referees. As a result, it was an extremely chaotic and brutal affair. An early article on boxing was published in Nottingham in 1713 by Sir Thomas Parkyns, 2nd Baronet, a wrestling patron from Bunny, Nottinghamshire, who had practised the techniques he described. The article, a single page in his manual of wrestling and fencing, Progymnasmata: The inn-play, or Cornish-hugg wrestler, described a system of headbutting, punching, eye-gouging, chokes, and hard throws, not recognized in boxing today. A newspaper of 1723 reported that women also took part in boxing.